If Wishes Were Horses
by idea-of-sarcasm
Summary: Hermione's never been one for divination


**Title: **If Wishes Were Horses  
**Author: **ideaofsarcasm  
**Disclaimer:** Shocker isn't it that I am not JK Rowling, nor do I own anything Harry Potter related?  
**Pairing:**Hermione-centric with Ron/Hermione  
**Rating: **PG-13. Can't have smut my first time (I'm not that kind of girl).  
**Summary: **Hermione's never been into divination.  
**Genre: **Angst.General fic. Post-HBP.  
**Author's Notes**: My first fanfic in the Harry Potter fandom. A little nerve wracking actually. Oh, and sorry, I am blatantly not British. Well, as Canadian I'm a little more so than in the US, but my writing is not.

* * *

She watches the faces around her, smiling and singing even as the cake is set before her, alit with the many candles.

The Gryffindor common room is full tonight. Harry and Ron have used her birthday as an excuse for the party, but she knows that the attendance of everyone here tonight isn't for her. She isn't popular, she isn't pretty, she isn't even well liked, and nobody had deigned to notice this occasion any other year. She accepts that they are here because of the Boy-Who-Lived, and his quidditch star best friend, and she's fine with it.

Imagine how even less focused they would be on her if they knew the real reason Harry and Ron wanted to see all their friends tonight. Tomorrow the three of them are leaving school, for good. Nobody at Hogwarts knew of their plans, not even McGonagall. They would be leaving written explanations to be found on their departure, but it was easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission. No teacher, or Weasley parent, would let them embark on this reckless scheme on their own.

Even now as she smiles at Ron and Harry who are singing the loudest of the group, she can't believe she's doing this. For once in her life school isn't coming first. And this isn't just skipping some test, this is running the risk of not being allowed to graduate. Sure, she knows more than any student in this school already, but that's not the criteria they use to hand out diplomas. But she knows that this quest is more important than any academic qualification, and she has to do whatever she can to help.

She's doing it for Harry, because everyone in the wizarding world knows that he will have to be the one to bring down Voldemort. She knows that for all the knowledge she has diligently acquired over the years, he would rather have Ron by his side; she is best friend to neither of them, even if they both are to her. But she pledges herself to his cause anyway, knowing that it will all be worth it even if the only thing she can bring to the table is her calming influence.

Hermione can see Neville Longbottom, the bane of potions class, smiling encouragingly at her to blow out the candles.

_She would never leave tomorrow if she could see his death at the hands of Snape when the Death Eaters stormed the school._

Ginny Weasely, probably about the only thing she has even resembling a female friend, is sitting on the couch next to her. She doesn't have to look over to see Ginny's attention is focused squarely where it has been every waking moment of the last few months: directly on Harry.

_Maybe it's better that now she couldn't see Ginny standing at the graves of her many fallen friends, saved herself only by the fact that she had been knocked unconscious by some falling rubble. _

She knows they are all waiting for her to blow out her candles and make a wish, but time seems to slow down as she looks around at the people gathered here, people she plans to leave tomorrow. They may not be close to her, but like it or not their mere presence has made them her surrogate family at Hogwarts.

_She's still immune from the knowledge that her real family will die a mere month later. Not at the hands of death eaters as she had always feared deep down, but in a simple muggle car accident. And she wouldn't find out for months because that spell she had developed to stop Voldemort's followers, or even Order members, from following them had worked just a little too well._

Ron leans over and places a soft peck on her lips, causing the room to erupt into a mocking cheer (She'll never get over how his skin can approach the colour of his hair). He's never done more than that. Even Victor Krum had tried to slip her a little tongue once. But Ron for all his blustering is painfully shy, and will never initiate anything more himself.

She loves Ron, at least as much as she is capable of loving anyone at this age. She still remembers the day he approached her while she was visiting the Burrow, full of awkward words and gestures. For all that there have never been any real dates due to lack of opportunity, they are more a couple than he and Lavender Brown ever were.

_Not even in her most jealous moment would she have ever believed that Lavender would actually be turned to Voldemort's cause._

She will accept the fact that no matter how much she loves him, no matter how committed they become to one another, she will always come second to Harry in his life. As long as she comes before any other girl she will be satisfied; because she has to acknowledge that maybe in some ways Harry comes first for her too, at least for now. He is the only one who can end this cycle of fear that they all live in, and that is her motivation for putting him first.

_She thinks that she'll always be there for Ron irregardless, but she won't be there during the hardest moment of his life. He'll be alone the night that a stray death eater stumbles across him not far from where they have set up camp, and he utters his first 'avada kedavra'. Nobody will be with him when he pulls back the mask to reveal his elder brother Percy. He will have nobody to comfort him as he pukes into the bushes, the normally stoic boy sobbing._

If it were anybody's birthday but hers, she knows that the firewhiskey would have been brought out by now. It's not an 18th birthday in Gyiffindor unless drunkenness is involved. Most of the seventh years, and a good proportion of the fifth and sixth years, have access to a supply of the forbidden beverage. Even though she pretends she doesn't, she knows all about the two bottles stuffed in Ron's trunk, a present from Fred and George. Fleetingly, she wishes that they would crack them out tonight. She wants one night of irresponsibility before tomorrow. For when they leave Hogwarts they are all on their own, and she becomes the 'adult' by default.

It's been months of planning to get to this point; months of planning by her at least. The practical details are what she takes comfort in, and it kills her she can't create a timetable for the Horcrux hunt. She's about to be more adrift than she ever has been before; no class schedule to live her days by, no homework schedule to fill her evenings, in short, no structure. She can't predict where they hunt will take them, how they will live, what they will do. Maybe that's why she's spent even more time planning than if she could, wanting to control everything she can.

She's learned every hex, every potion, charm or spell that she could find. She's tried to teach Ron and Harry, but they don't want to learn. They don't understand the necessity of the rest of the spells if they know the unforgivables. She doesn't know how to make them understand it's not that simple in real life; not everyone they come across will be Voldemort incarnate. She doesn't know how they plan on dealing with the Horcruxes once they find them – smashing them with a rock isn't going to do the trick. She wants to lecture, but does what she always does, stays the responsible one as they enjoy their last months of relative freedom.

There was Harry's birthday, the day of freedom he thought he was waiting his whole life for. But even as she and Ron helped him carry out his belongings, and she watched him stare back at the house, she knew that it is not that simple, even for him. This was the house he grew up in, the only relatives he had ever known. For all that they were cruel, his aunt Petunia was his mother's sister, the only real link to his parents he had left. That had been his home, such as it was, and in a soon he wouldn't even have Hogwarts.

_Nobody would have predicted the toll this life of ultimate responsibility would take on Harry, haunting him in ways the death of his parents and cruelty of his relatives never could. Even with the victory won, even as the saviour of the wizarding world, his life will never be complete. Victory does not erase the guilt he feels at not doing it sooner, at not saving those who fell. Every night when he falls asleep, all he can see is the face of his dead friend before him. Even on his wedding day, even at the birth of his first child, he will never be truly happy, truly free. As good as he becomes at hiding it, it never leaves him alone._

Hermione thinks about the letters tied in a little parcel in her room. They will be left on her bed beside the parchment explaining things to McGonagall. She's a bright girl, she knows the dangers, and she realizes she might not come back. There are letters to everyone she's left behind that she cares about, which aren't many, and even letters to Harry and Ron should that situation arise. She's not a mushy girl, she never has been, and she's scared the letters read more like business communication that the emotional missives that they are supposed to be.

_She doesn't know that they will never be read. Nobody ever finds her letters under the rubble and destruction that is McGonagall's office. One of the few portraits left on the wall could have told someone, but nobody even knew to look._

Here in the Gryffindor common room, the first place she found any semblance of belonging, she wants this moment, this night, to last forever. But time doesn't stop, at least not without magic, even if it seems to slow down. The party will break up by curfew, her birthday will end without incident, and when the clock strikes 2AM she will sneak out of her head girl's room with the belongings they have stored there. The room that was all hers for these few weeks at least. They will leave, having no contact with those they are leaving behind.

Hermione feels Ron's arm around her shoulder, and she smiles up at him before leaning over to blow out her candles. All 18 of them. She would try to leave one still lighted, but Ron doesn't know the muggle significance of that anyway. The small lights are blown out in a single puff, and the crowd is storming to get their piece of cake.

As she extinguishes the small flames the wishes that goes through her head are frivolous things, at least wishes that seem that way considering what they are embarking on tomorrow. For most girls, wishing that they don't die a virgin is commonplace, if not quite as urgent.

_It's probably best she doesn't know that her wish won't come true._

Amidst the confusion she smiles up at Harry as he comes to sit beside them, taking the seat beside her. He's distracted as he stares at Ron's sister who has paused her pining glances towards him as Seamus hands her a piece of cake. Hermione squeezes his hand reassuringly, knowing without his ever having said anything that leaving her behind is hard for him.

_At least he'll come back, and in time he'll become a legal member of the Weasley family instead of just an honourary one._

They sit there, Ron's arm around her shoulder and Harry's hand clenched in hers. It's just the three of them now, more so than it has ever been. There is no Lavender, no Ginny (at least not physically), no Neville, no quidditch team, and no Hogwarts. They will be depending only on each other. She wants to know that they'll be successful, that it will all be worth their while, but she knows there are no guarantees.

_It's too bad she doesn't know what's going to happen, because she doesn't know what to properly wish for when she blows out the candles._

_She doesn't know she'll die the day before Harry defeats Voldemort. It's probably best she doesn't know how it will happen. She doesn't know that Harry will freeze in his fight against Draco, unable to utter the killing curse on the boy he had gone to Hogwarts with, no matter who that boy had been. She doesn't know that she will kill a classmate of hers, tears streaming down her cheeks, because Harry can't do it before getting hit himself. And she doesn't know that it will leave her vulnerable to the attack from Pettigrew from behind._

_It's actually probably best that, like all the rest, she doesn't know. It wouldn't change a thing._

_For if wishes were horses, we all would ride._


End file.
